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After a disappointing defeat to Russia in their opening match, New Zealand's All Whites face another tough fixture against Mexico in their second fixture.

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Mexico produced a resilient performance in their opening match of the 2017 Confederations Cup. Despite going down twice to European Champions Portugal, Juan Carlos Osorio's men were able to rescue a point thanks to equalisers from Javier Hernandez and Hector Moreno, the second coming in injury time to cancel out Cristiano Ronaldo's 84th minute strike.

El Tricolor came into the tournament in Russia on the back of some terrific form too and they are already all but confirmed for a place at next summer's World Cup as they sit seven points clear of fourth placed Panama in CONCACAF World Cup qualifying with just four games remaining.

New Zealand are not expected to pull up any trees in Russia this summer and after going down 2-0 to the hosts in the tournament's opening fixture, they now face two even more difficult matches and we don't think they have the quality to battle through to pick up the points they need to progress to the semi-final.

At least World Cup qualification is on course for the time being. The All Whites should be able to beat the Solomon Islands in the final of the Oceania qualifying section and the winner of that match will face another play-off fixture.

Before that they'll be hoping to earn a Confederations Cup, although they face a tall order against Mexico.

There's quite a gulf in class between these two teams and we're expecting that to be evident over the course of ninety minutes. The likes of Carlos Vela, Javier Hernandez and Giovani Dos Santos will have too much quality for the New Zealanders here. As such, we're backing Mexico on the two goal handicap.

Hernandez bagged Mexico's first goal in this tournament against Portugal last week and the Bayer Leverkusen striker is arguably Mexico's main man in attack. The 29-year-old has racked up no fewer than 48 goals in his 93 caps and he bagged 12 times in less than 30 league appearances for Bayer last term.